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Wow, I never knew they ran electrical lines this way! Obviously there's a lot of work to do here... The lines are insulated for the most part, and they are held away from the joists on ceramic standoffs (knob and tube). There's even bare wire where someone in later years added wall outlets. And, you can see all the wonderful insulation (NOT) that keeps my heat in the house... lol!

Read more for the pictures...

I did learn that at least the upper half of the house was originally stucco before the previous owner put siding up. You can see the backing at the gables. This was pretty common for many Craftsman / Arts & Crafts homes and most times would be stucco for the top level and wood siding on the bottom.

Here you can see the finished product. I'm not an electrician, so I won't go into details of exactly how or what was done, but I do have a background in electronics so I knew what I was doing. I don't recommend the average do-it-yourselfer do this kind of rewiring. You can also see I took out the old wiring.

Unfortunately I still have only one circuit that runs the entire upstairs, because I'm not competent enough to add a breaker and line to the box, but I did wire everything so it could be broken up into two separate circuits very easily and plan to have an electrician run a new line to the breaker box later.

I also added 21 rolls of R-25 insulation to the attic, and we actually keep snow and frost on the roof now! Hopefully that will stave off any huge gas bills. Come spring I need to cut some attic vents.

I also took the opportunity to add a wall outlet and light switch with light in the attic. That sure made adding the insulation a lot easier!

I also replaced the two standard switches in the hall (and the wiring) with a three way switch setup for the stair light.

The thing about knob and tube wiring is that they sometimes did some weird things. I never quite figured out how the old hall light was wired, or why there were three (not two) wires coming to the hall switch at the bottom of the stairs. I ended up just cutting two new holes for standard wall switches and running new lines.imported-31